First it was an exhibition, a symposium and a video screening in Ljublana, Slovenia. Then it was a workshop and a seminar week in Muhu Island, Estonia. Now it is a creative collaboration network between artists, dealing with „doings" and dealing with „not". It's an umbrella, a platform – a mobile association of people in contemporary art's superstructure.

work no. 8. on the 9th june 2008, the curator margit säde asked me toparticipate in the opening of "d V n" group exhibition in ljubljana(slovenia) with a presentation. travel and accommodation was paid.however, upon arrival it became clear that i was asked to do asite-specific work as well. the subject of the work turned out to be apresentation of an arbitrary, concealed and salient place in thegallery, while the main subject was a universal, logical and whirlingsentence that accompanied it. due to the big success of the work i wasasked to do a site-specific work for the "d V n eesti ver" exhibitionas well, to be opened in tallinn on the 21st january 2009 (travel waspaid), the work turned out to be "work no. 8". the curators margitsäde and laura kuusk disallowed the heading, as it had nojustification neither from the viewpoint of the exhibition nor of thework. the present text is added upon the request of the curators andthe text accepted by the curators

Although artist and his/her work stands in the middle of the art world, the artist still tends to be the only one in this structure working without a salary. There are two legal ways of existence for an artist offered by our state – to work as a self-employed (artist-manufacturer à la Tauno Kangro or Epp-Maria Kokamägi) or as a freelance artist who has the right to apply for a support that equals the minimum wage during six months (it is not allowed to have any other income!).

Shaking hands with the guards is a follow-up to the action at the annual exhibition of Estonian Artists‘ Association (Useful work, 2008) where I swept off the dust from exhibited works. Both the cleaning-up job’s and guarding work‘s purpose is the maintenance and preservation of the art work. The activities related to maintaining and preserving are historically considered to be work done by women.Similarly to my previous documentation of shaking hands with customer service consultants in Tallinn’s Department Store (Ladies‘ Paradise, 2008), majority of the guards participated in this project are female and retired – the fact that makes evident the segregation of gender and age in the labour market. One can assume that one of the reasons why out of 909 members of Estonian Artists‘ Association 609 are female is that money to pay for work is lacking in this domain.Shaking hands with guards in art galleries and museums is thus visual statistics and an act of solidarity – one underpaid female meeting the other.